"On the Democratic side of the coalition, the more conservative Blue Dogs of the majority are still far more liberal than the real conservative Democrats of the Clinton era, who, when they later changed parties, turned out to be among the most right-wing of Republicans." -- Mark Schmitt
Conventional wisdom regarding Barack Obama's prospects has been, as most Washington conventional wisdom is, deeply misguided. Pundits have been speculating at the odds of Blue Dogs halting the Obama agenda as occurred with Bill Clinton, but this scenario is painfully out of date. The Democratic Party, circa 1994, was a very different party than it is now. These days, when someone says "conservative Democrat" they are intended to mean a Democrat that is right-of-center on most cultural and social issues, but that is left-of-center on most economic and bread and butter issues. This is largely true. But a 1994 Blue Dog (or Boll Weevil) tended to be an actual political conservative who believed in cutting taxes on the rich, rolling the trade unions, and so on. There really aren't any of those left in the Democratic Party, as they've all gone to the GOP.
There's another dynamic at play now that wasn't in 1992. In 1992, the Democrats had been running Congress for about fifty years, and they just assumed they would run it forever. Conservative Democrats didn't really care too much for Bill Clinton and his agenda, and many no doubt figured that opposing it would help them in their home districts. There was, in other words, a rift between the Congressional-level Democratic Party and the Presidential-level Democratic Party. The latter was dominated by liberals that nominated folks like Mike Dukakis and Fritz Mondale, while the former was dominated by right-leaning Southerners. This schism, by and large, no longer exists, as is evidenced by Georgia Senate candidate Jim Martin tying himself to Barack Obama after pushing his election with Saxby Chambliss into a runoff. Thanks to the events of the past few years and the progressive infrastructure that has been built, there is much more of an "all-for-one" feel among Democrats these days, and there are only a few Boll Weevil-like Gene Taylors and Dan Borens stalking the halls. At the same time, moderate Republicans of the sort that would perpetually tease Bill Clinton with their support have generally been replaced with reliable liberal Democrats, and those few remaining might have more of a motivation to seem bipartisan and moderate considering the electoral shift of the past two elections rather than just waiting until being restored to power--a wait that would no doubt take a while.
